AIIMS CVO not eligible to hold post, says Harsh Vardhan
22 Aug 2014 6:06 AM IST
By making such allegation the minister has let the cat out of the bag as similar allegation was made by Jagat Prakash Nadda, BJP’s general secretary, against the IFS officer of Haryana cadre a few years back.
The health minister, in reply to a media query, said that Chaturvedi was not at all eligible for the post which he was holding, adding that the appointment of Chaturvedi was not cleared by the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) and without the approval of CVC, nobody can be assigned the post of a CVO. But late in May, a note from his own ministry had recognised Chaturvedi for his ‘absolute integrity.’ Chaturvedi was earlier appointed CVO till June 2016.
Sources said that Chaturvedi was not in the good books of Nadda as one of the cases of corruption that the IFS officer flagged involved a senior officer who was posted at AIIMS and belonged to Nadda’s home state of Himachal Pradesh. Nadda had written to the Department of Personnel and Training last year objecting to Chaturvedi’s appointment as both deputy secretary and CVO.
In 2012, when Manmohan Singh was heading the coalition UPA government, Chaturvedi had alleged that he was being persecuted by the Haryana government with transfers and false cases for exposing environmental violations. He was then moved to AIIMS. As a shield for the whistleblower, a parliamentary committee sought and was given an assurance by the health ministry (then headed by Ghulam Nabi Azad) that the bureaucrat would not be removed from AIIMS mid-term.
During his stint at AIIMS, Chaturvedi exposed several scams prevalent in AIIMS such as officials at the hospital using government funds to make illegal foreign trips, a senior bureaucrat’s dog given radio-therapy at the specialty cancer centre, illegal medicines being sold at the hospital’s main pharmacy, security guards hired without following proper processes for the hospital.
Meanwhile, AAP took exception to the removal of Chaturvedi terming him an honest officer.
The health minister, in reply to a media query, said that Chaturvedi was not at all eligible for the post which he was holding, adding that the appointment of Chaturvedi was not cleared by the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) and without the approval of CVC, nobody can be assigned the post of a CVO. But late in May, a note from his own ministry had recognised Chaturvedi for his ‘absolute integrity.’ Chaturvedi was earlier appointed CVO till June 2016.
Sources said that Chaturvedi was not in the good books of Nadda as one of the cases of corruption that the IFS officer flagged involved a senior officer who was posted at AIIMS and belonged to Nadda’s home state of Himachal Pradesh. Nadda had written to the Department of Personnel and Training last year objecting to Chaturvedi’s appointment as both deputy secretary and CVO.
In 2012, when Manmohan Singh was heading the coalition UPA government, Chaturvedi had alleged that he was being persecuted by the Haryana government with transfers and false cases for exposing environmental violations. He was then moved to AIIMS. As a shield for the whistleblower, a parliamentary committee sought and was given an assurance by the health ministry (then headed by Ghulam Nabi Azad) that the bureaucrat would not be removed from AIIMS mid-term.
During his stint at AIIMS, Chaturvedi exposed several scams prevalent in AIIMS such as officials at the hospital using government funds to make illegal foreign trips, a senior bureaucrat’s dog given radio-therapy at the specialty cancer centre, illegal medicines being sold at the hospital’s main pharmacy, security guards hired without following proper processes for the hospital.
Meanwhile, AAP took exception to the removal of Chaturvedi terming him an honest officer.
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